Raindrops keep falling on your head

And you can measure them, while playing an important role in weather watching and helping farmers

Illinois AGRINEWS Shaw Media

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — How would you like to play a part in making local weather forecasts more accurate and contribute to studies of precipitation and climate? Don’t worry, it’s not as hard as it sounds. All you have to do is walk out into your yard and read between the lines.

Trent Ford, Illinois’ state climatologist, is getting the word out about the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow network, and he hopes people hear what he has to say. CoCoRaHS is a nationwide non-profit network of volunteers who measure precipitation — be it rain or snow — using gauges staked out in their yards. The program has about 860 volunteers in Illinois, but more are needed, and in all parts of the state too, both urban and rural.

CoCoRaHS volunteers check rain gauges daily, measure any precipitation and report the results on an app or computer. They not only play a role in weather watching, but they can also learn how weather affects our lives.

Rainfall observers help fill the gaps where National Weather Service stations are absent. When NWS stations are far apart, their reports don’t account for local variability in rainfall.

In Champaign County, for instance, Ford noted that last year in two locations just eight miles apart, one area received 10 more inches of rain than the other.

Volunteers also track when there’s no precipitation, which can also be important.

Ford examines indicators for drought every week so he can make recommendations to the U.S. Drought Monitor, which informs federal and state decisions on drought recovery assistance.

“It’s really important for me to have data from observers to know where it didn’t rain,” he said. “Without the observations, we might assume that the whole county got rainfall.”

While weather is one of those topics we all seem to talk about it, it’s espe- cially important to agriculture.

“When thinking in agricultural terms,” For said, “10 inches of rain could be the difference between a good crop or one that yields less than expected.”

Information from the reports is also used by a number of other people and organizations, including the National Weather Service, and has helped improve river forecasts and drought assessment. The daily precipitation measurements that volunteers provide are important for post-event analysis to understand storms and their impacts in the state. The observations contribute to the understanding of where there may be effects from urban or flash flooding.

Daily and weekly precipitation data are also used to improve predictions for the following week’s forecast, Ford said.

“One thing we all share is our concern over the accuracy of weather forecasts,” he said. “The CoCoRaHS network makes a huge difference in helping us to understand that day-to-day weather variability.”

More info

Want to help? Go to cocorahs.org/ Application.aspx to fill out an application form

The coordinator for the Northwest region — which includes Bureau, Carroll, and Whiteside counties — is Tim Gross, who can be reached at 563-386-3976 or tim.gross@noaa.gov

The coordinators for the North region, which includes Lee and Ogle counties, are Scott Baker and Scott Lincoln, who can be reached at 815-834-0673 or scott.baker@noaa.gov and scott. lincoln@noaa.gov.

The Illinois state coordinator, Steve Hilberg, can be reached at 217-3776034 or hberg@illinois.edu. Go to cocorahs.org/state.aspx?state=il to see an Illinois’ precipitation map.